Plot: Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) was a sophomore at Harvard, when he got in trouble for inventing Facemash, which rated Harvard undergrad girls for hotness. Two upperclassmen hired him to write a program called Harvard Connection, but while he was doing that he wrote Facebook with a backer Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield.) Later Mark meets Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), who gets Facebook big money funding, and then tricks Sean into selling out. The movie is told in flashback during a legal case from the other founders of Facebook. The flashbacks feature frat parties, drinking, and flirty girls.
Review: From the opening dialogue with Jesse Eisenberg and Roone Mara (as girlfriend Erica) the writing is clever, fast moving and witty. The plot keeps moving, and the story is about the people not the legal angles. The plot details seem dull, but to the movie's credit it is interesting and engaging.
They pull a Hollywood trick of intercutting (seemingly) technical details with sex scenes or in one case a girl spitefully setting a bed on fire. This makes the movie interesting visually for those who are glossing over the details, but mostly it means meaningless girl-on-girl kissing and gratuitous skin. A little of this is OK, but when I start to notice it, then it is too much.
A second problem was the sound editing, which was noticeably poor -- good sound editing should not be noticeable. Several times foot steps and props did not sound right.
I liked this movie a lot mostly because the writing was so clever. It was engaging throughout. Mark Zuckerberg was not especially likeable, but he was a strong personality that we rooted for. I also liked the that there was some amount of computer geek-talk in the film, and that the geeks win. I did not like the elitist Harvard stuff.
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Roone Mara
Written and directed by: Alan Sorkin based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich
Rating: 3.5 flasks; Performances are good. The script is outstanding. Not the world's funnest movie, but very strong. Closer to 3.0 than 4.0 though.
More: Hollywood movies generally don't have a lot of fact in them. Supposedly Mark Zuckerberg is much less articulate in real life. Cameron Winklevoss says he was deceived and swindled out of the original concept.
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